


The Sylkie Maiden: Stories from Jakku

by glorious_clio



Series: Star Wars is a Faerie Tale [3]
Category: Star Wars, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 19:47:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7328047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_clio/pseuds/glorious_clio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey collects stories as well as scavenging for parts. They all tell her the same thing.<br/>Backstory angst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sylkie Maiden: Stories from Jakku

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Sylkie Maiden](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/210103) by glorious clio. 
  * Inspired by [Instructions](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/178765) by Neil Gaiman. 
  * Inspired by [The Sylkie Maiden | playmoss](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/252106) by glorious clio. 



> Thank you to lalalalalawhy for her excellent beta skills! She is an absolute treasure and writes some amazing fairytales of her own. I love swapping stories with her.
> 
> Thanks also to zephyr42 for being on comma control. <3
> 
> The poetry in the story comes from a Neil Gaiman poem called "Instructions" which you could generously say I "remixed." I took a lot of inspiration from that poem over the years, and I highly recommend you read it. If you like Gaiman and poetry, I mean.
> 
> I also created a playlist that you're welcome to listen to while you read, and you can find that here:  
> http://8tracks.com/glorious-clio/the-sylkie-maiden-stories-from-jakku

_Once upon a time, there lived a Sylkie maiden named Maristela. She was a good Sylkie, a strong swimmer with a coat smoother than most, unblemished by scars. She stayed near her pod, learning from her elders. She liked hunting for fish, she knew how to escape a predator relying solely on her agility. The sea was full of curiosities for her to explore with her pod. She adored the shining pearls on the seafloor. The colorful fish were beautiful, with their elaborate spines, ruffles, stripes, or spots, even if they were poisonous. The krill-eating whales were nothing to be afraid of, the sharks would eat her just as soon as look at her, but they had their own kind of beauty; long and lean and full of teeth._

_With her pod, she explored that seas of her planet. And in the dead of night, they shed their skins and dance on the strand like the land creatures under the stars._

_It was a curious thing, to shed one’s skin, and it was good to feel sand between foreign toes. Sensations on land were sharper, harsher, sensations that were impossible to detect with fins and layers of blubber. So Maristela the Sylkie maiden carefully explored the land under her mother’s watchful eye, until the day she ceased being a pup._

_Her hair was wet and the stones on the shore were cutting her feet and everything changed._

 

 

 

 

Rey had finally stopped crying and screaming for her family. Unkar Plutt, disgusted with the girl’s heavy tears, had thrust the tiny child at Ivano Troade, a scavenger who would be teaching the child her trade anyway.  

Ivano Troade was weary, wiry and thin, with dark skin and hair she kept tightly cropped. She was also kind and full of pity; her heart reached out to this small human child that would soon be worked to the bone, and then to the death. And so she told Rey about the Sylkie maiden to calm her. Jakku did not have fancy schools or a literary tradition, nothing for academics to look at and judge their cultural norms. But beings on Jakku had Maristela the Sylkie, tales from a time that this deserted desert planet had boasted its own oceans.

Rey had always liked hearing stories, and she eventually dried her salty tears and listened to Ivano tell her this one.

Her family, they were sure to come back, she told herself. She just had to be brave. And patient. This was all a dreadful, dreadful mistake.  

 

 

 

 

_Her hair was wet and the stones on the shore were cutting her feet and everything changed._

_Her mother and her brothers and sisters were dancing in the starlight when Maristela heard music coming from a nearby village. She left her coat with her mother and, feeling no shame about her nakedness, followed the sounds to their source._

_The Sylkies made a little music, and the sirens sang sailors to their death, of course. But this was different, this human music.  She suddenly knew what it felt like when sailors heard the sirens’ call - she was drawn to the sound like a magnetic pull._

_Walking on to the inn of the village, she met a man who stared at her, and gallantly offered her a cloak after awkwardness stung her for a moment. She wrapped it around her skin, and it felt light and a little scratchy. It was so different from the heaviness and smoothness and comfort of her own sealskin._

_She followed him inside and watched, mesmerized, as the humans danced around and with and through each other, spurred on by alcohol and music. The man who offered his cloak watched her, tried to talk to her, but the music and the dancing was so loud it was like trying to hear something underwater before the pressure in her ears would pop. She nodded and drank the ale he brought her. He was careful not to touch her._

_‘Are you one of the sealasses, then?’ a barmaid asked, settling down a basket of bread._

_Maristela nodded slowly._

_‘Aye, we get a few of you, now and then. Curious about the dry world.’ She pulled her tray against her middle. Her dark hair streamed down her back in thick heavy curls, her black skin shone beautifully. ‘You’ll find it’s much the same as your world, family pods, food to gather, danger to watch for.’ She shrugged. ‘I’ll warn you, if you stay longer than the night, you may find yourself in a fair bit of trouble.’_

_Her eyes were wide and Maristela nodded at the warning. ‘Thank you,’ she said carefully. Her voice sounded like a seal bark. Sharp and loud. It carried._

_A few other patrons of the bar looked at her curiously before turning their faces to the dancing again. Maristela blushed._

_She ran back to the sea, her home, her mother. The cloak flew up behind her, but no one followed, and when Maristela reached the sea, she found them gone.  Her family had left, or was chased off, and though she waded into the waves, no one returned to her._

_Maristela looked and looked for her sealskin coat, and after the tide came in, and out, and in, and out, and in again, she gave it up for lost. She knew not what had driven her family off, no idea how to find her coat. She cried heavy tears into the ocean, feeling that the barmaid was right, she had never been in such trouble._

_Slowly, she wrapped her cloak tightly around her again and retraced her steps back to the inn.  There was no plan, other then find the barmaid. Maybe she would have more advice._

 

 

 

 

Everyone on Jakku, it seemed, had their own version of Maristela. Rey decided she would collect them all and give them back to her family when they returned to her. Mashra even had _two_ that she liked to tell.

Rey liked Mashra. She was an Aqualish, her stories about Maristela were some of Rey’s favorites, and she wondered if Mashra might be a sylkie herself, since Ando was a true water world. Mashra sometimes had trouble with all the sand, with the light, much harsher on Jakku than just about anywhere else.  

Mashra took Rey under her wing after Ivano left. She was tougher than Ivano, expected more of her, but no harder than Plutt after all was said and done. And she was right to be hard; they needed the rations. Mashra taught her how to survive on a planet where neither truly belonged, how to collect water, keep it from evaporating, how to make rations last. How to protect delicate skin from the cruel sun, how to stay warm at night. And she gave her young protégé a quarterstaff and taught her to use it.

“I can’t always be around to protect you, girl,” she said.

“Can you show me?”

When they weren’t too tired after scavenging and cleaning, they practiced, mostly at dusk just before it turned bitter cold.  

And if they were too tired, or if it was too cold, Rey would demand a story of Maristela the Sylkie Maiden.

“You don’t want those silly stories, girl.”

“Yes I do! And my name is Rey.”

Her eye would twitch.   

“Names are important, Rey,” she would say in her gruff voice. “Which one do you most want to hear?”

Rey didn’t care. It didn’t always matter how Maristela lost her coat or her family, but when she would get them back.  

Funny how no one ever finished the story, though. Maybe one day someone would tell her how Maristela’s coat was returned to her, how it ended. And then she could tell her own family when they came for her. Any day now. Maristela would find her coat, and Rey would go home.

And if she never learned the ending before her family came back, that was okay, because maybe they knew the ending.

At night, she would fall asleep, thinking of a safe island in the middle of the sea where Maristela could live with her family.

 

 

 

 

_Her hair was wet and the stones on the shore were cutting her feet and everything changed._

_It was usually a choice that Sylkies make, to shed their skins and make their families with humans, or to remain in their sealskins and keep to the sea. However, there are those that wish harm upon the gentle seafolk._

_So it was with Maristela, who was frolicking with her seal-sisters in the shallows when a blade sliced through her skin. The violence of the act shocked her. She lay gasping in the surf while her sisters screamed._

_‘Flee-’ she willed them and they did. The stones were digging into her back while a voice laughed._

_‘Who are you?’ she finally managed. She looked up to see a creature in a mask._

_‘A Trickster,’ it replied. The voice was neither high nor low, nothing to betray the species, age, gender or anything about the speaker._

_‘What have you done?’_

_‘I have cut you from your seal skin, my girl. I should have thought that obvious.’ The voice reminded her of a shark skin - smooth one way, rough the other. This being was more dangerous than any shark, though how she knew, she could not be sure._

_Maristela the Sylkie maiden got shakily to her feet. ‘But why?’_

_The mask betrayed no emotion whatsoever, but when it spoke again, it had a laugh in its voice. ‘I require your coat.’_

_‘So do I.’_

_‘That’s too bad. Tell you what, I’ll offer you a little challenge. If you can before seven years have passed, you may have your coat back. If not, you are doomed to humanity.’_

_‘No, wait-’ Maristela tried to negotiate terms, but it was too late, and the Trickster disappeared in a flash._

_Maristela screamed into the night and the stars seemed to shake from the sheer force of her voice. She collapsed back into the surf, letting the sea wash over her. She cried her tears into the indifferent water. In time her mother and sisters came back; and she was surrounded by the sounds and smells of her home, but she knew she was no longer fit to live in the sea._

_Screwing up every ounce of courage she had, Maristela got once again to her feet in the earliest dawn light. Her mother gazed at her now-human daughter and stepped out of her Sylkie skin._

_‘Mother, please come with me.’_

_‘Oh, my child, I cannot. It has been years since I chose to live on the land. I have young pups now, I must think of them.’_

_‘How? How did you live on the land?’_

_‘You must find your skin,’ her mother said. ‘My advice is only good to those who would choose to live on the land. You have no choice._

_‘You do have one gift, however. If you listen very carefully, you will always be able to find fresh water. It is the gift of all Sylkie folk. You may dig a well in the ground for it, or it may be a spring nearby, or perhaps trickles of water on the back of a cave. But any water you hear flowing will be safe to drink. This will keep you alive, and you may be able to use the gift to help others. But as it is with all gifts, you must never demand payment for it.’_

_‘I will come back,’ she promised her mother._

_‘And we will await your return.’ She brushed her hand over her daughter’s wet and salty hair before she transformed back into her seal form._

_So Maristela walked away from her watery home and all through the dry world, working where she could, sleeping where she could, eating what she could. She sometimes thought that the dry life was not so different than being a seal, though it was harder to separate predators from those who wished her no harm. Her comfortable blubber melted away to muscle, her hands toughened, her skin weathered darkly, scars marked her delicate human flesh. Her hair grew out and she cut it off in a seemingly endless cycle._

_She used her gift: to find water for herself, for farmers and families dying of thirst, for cities gripped with terrible drought. Sometimes they offered her spare gifts in return; a night next to a hearth, a crust of bread, a spare dress, once or twice, a pair of ill-fitting shoes. She liked bread best of all, as it warmed her belly. But she heeded her mother’s words and never ever asked for payment._

_She walked on and on, searching the whole world for the Trickster with her beautiful sealskin coat._

_Once a year, on the anniversary of the violence, she visited the sea, standing on the strand, letting tiny waves wet the hem of her human dress. Her mother would transform to wipe her daughter’s tears. No words were said, for grief needs no language._

_Maristela walked on and on through the world, marking time until the seventh year._

 

 

 

 

Rey started drifting from Mashra, striking out on her own. She still went home to her, shared her rations, or less likely, if Mashra had more, she shared. Rey was growing more independent. And Rey knew her Maristela stories by heart now.

Mashra seemed to accept this without bitterness. She was used to a hard life, and this wasn’t her first protégé. Unkar Plutt gave orders to everyone to leave Rey be, and they mostly did. Those desperate enough to try and take her on usually found themselves choking on sand when Rey turned her quarterstaff on them.  

Rey took it on herself to scavenge where others didn’t dare. She was quick, small, agile. And had a good eye for what parts were useful and valuable.  

One day, she was scanning some new territory away from the starship graveyard, determining if it was worth exploring. She had scavenged enough that day to earn her an evening meal, and maybe some breakfast, so in truth she was scouting for tomorrow. She found a fallen AT-AT, away from the battle a bit, as if it was cut down as it was trying to make an escape. She climbed in to evaluate the potential and wasn’t really impressed. Rey was about to turn back when her eyes rested on something _green_. She hurried to a corner over to find a spinebarrel plant growing in a shaft of light in the walker.  

Carefully, so carefully, Rey brushed a finger over it.

“What are you doing here?” she asked it gently. Of course it gave her no answer.  

Rey poured a tiny drop of water near the bottom of the stem and decided to look closer the AT-AT, the _Hellhound Two_ , according to the markings.  

The walls were thick and strong, she was at a fair distance from the Niima outpost. She could see people coming from miles off. She’d be alone, and far away from the outpost when her family came back, which was a worry. No Mashra to share food with. But if a spinebarrel could grow there, maybe she could, too.

She had a few hours before she had to report for cleaning, and Rey set herself to work, cleaning up the Walker as best she could. It wasn’t too hot in there, even as she worked. Tucked as it was in the valley of some dunes, the sun didn’t beat on it quite so hard. Considering she spent her life crawling in and out of baking ships, it didn’t feel so foreign to her. Besides, Rey knew how important it was to trap heat in your dwelling, so you wouldn’t freeze at night.

Finally, she was finished.  She nodded, satisfied. Most of the sand was now outside, except for the bit that the spinebarrel plant needed. The bunk in the corner would do for a bed, and it might even be more comfortable than her hammock at Mashra’s hovel. There were parts to scavenge if she got desperate. There were even some supplies, rations, a water purification system that she could fix. This had been a mostly self sufficient home for Imperials, after all. Rey briefly wondered why she hadn’t thought of a place like this before.  

Trudging back to the outpost, Rey cleaned her haul in silence. She then went to Mashra’s to share one last meal, pack her meager belongings, and hear one more story before saying goodbye to the Aqualish who had shown her so much kindness.

Mashra hugged her goodbye.

 

 

 

 

_Her hair was wet and the stones on the shore were cutting her feet and everything changed._

_In her forced human form, Maristela walked and walked. Her ill-fitting shoes filled with stones, and she emptied them every mile. Her comfortable blubber melted away to muscle, her hands toughened, her skin weathered darkly, scars marked her very human flesh. Her hair grew out and she cut it off in a seemingly endless cycle. She passed through cities and farms that seemed filled with families, even orphans traveled in groups, and Maristela was alone._

_There was one other man she met who was alone. When Maristela asked him gently, he replied that no, he was not a Sylkie, just a simple country man. Maristela felt sorry for him, and dug him a deep well that would never want for cool water._

_‘I have nothing to offer you in return,’ the poor man said from his doorway as Maristela dug._

_‘I must ask for no payment, for my mother said gifts should be shared freely.’_

_‘Good advice,’ the man said. ‘If you like, I can offer you some more, they may help you along your path.’_

_Maristela looked up hopefully. ‘Please?’_

_‘Remember your name._  
_Do not lose hope — what you seek will be found._  
_Trust ghosts. Trust those that you have helped_  
_to help you in their turn._  
_Trust dreams.  
Trust your heart, and trust your story.’_

_Maristela did not invite him to join her, and the man did not offer. He seemed delighted with his well and expressed a wish for an oasis for other travelers, determined to share her gift to him. But she remembered his words as she followed her lonely path to the end of the world and there, in the dry and barren wilderness, she found the Trickster._

_‘Our deal is done,’ she told it coldly. ‘I found you, and the Seventh year ends in three days time.’_

_‘Oh, my dear,’ the Trickster began in its silky, dangerous voice, ‘I am afraid-’_

_‘I’m not,’ she cut it off rudely._

_She had learned, on her difficult path, how to defend herself. She acted so quickly, it did not even think to defend itself. After a flurry of fists from Maristela, the Trickster was in the dust, and she turned away with her coat._

_She draped it gently over her arm and walked seven miles, one for every year she had been away from her mother, from her pod, from the sea._

_Then she stopped, and listened very carefully. Everything around her was dry and brittle, except for the ground beneath her feet, which was hard and packed._

_It would be difficult to dig through, but she had done it before._

_Using her hands, which had toughened, she began to dig, following the faint sound of water that echoed in her head, as if she had put a seashell to her ear._

_She dug steadily for three days and three nights, sharing the fresh water with any being or creature that passed her by. She continued to dig deeper, as the water came to her knees, her waist, and finally, in the eleventh hour of the last day, the water touched her lips and she tasted salt._

_Maristela knew the time had come. The sea was flooding into her well, a deeper well than she had ever dug before, her most important well._

_Quickly, she pulled on her sealskin coat. Though she had grown, the skin recognized her, stretched for her, accommodated her growth. She felt her hard muscles return to the soft blubber that would keep her warm in the cold depths of the sea. And, following a magnetic pull and trusting in her heart, Maristela swam down and away._

_She had trouble keeping track of time, but it did not matter. There was, somehow, still air in her lungs, and she swam and swam and swam, calling out in her mind for her mother and sisters that she was returning._

_Finally, finally, after many strokes, she found the channel deep in the earth that led her to the sea. It spat her out into a beautiful coral reef, and Maristela rushed to the surface, delighted with her gift, with her coat, with the fact that the seven years of toil and trouble were over._

_The sunlight shone on her beautiful coat, smoother and prettier than any human skin._

_In an instant, her family was around her, rubbing on her, nipping at her, measuring her whiskers with their own. They were all barking with their delight after having their sister returned to their ranks. The games they would play in the sea, the food they would share, the love they would give! Maristela barked loudest of all, reveling in her happiness, in the freedom of the ocean._

_And finally, oh finally, she was with her mother again._

_They shed tears into the sea, and the waves lapped them up, and after seven years of despair and walking,  Maristela knew what happiness was._

 

 

 

 

Rey counted the days. She had an immense wall in her home and when she moved in, she started scratching, making a mark for each day. She didn’t mark her time before the AT-AT, but by anyone’s count, she thought she was about ten years old. Double digits. A milestone.

She had hoped her family would be back by now, but she kept pushing forward. Seven years was a long time, and she wasn’t quite there yet, after all. Seven was the magic number in Maristela’s stories.

She could do seven.

At night, in the heat of her AT-AT, she would think of the sea, the ocean of Maristela’s world. She would think of a safe island for her, for her seal pod. And maybe for Rey herself.

She was scavenging in a new part of the Starship graveyard when she uncovered an almost perfectly preserved X-wing. They were rare on this battlefield, as they usually burned up on entry into the planet, but this one must have been flying low on purpose.  There was nothing left of the pilot but her helmet, which made Rey think she must have escaped the battle. Captain Dosmit Ræh, with the Tierfon Yellow Aces. Immediately Rey liked her, this pilot she never would meet.

She took the helmet home.  

She wanted more than the helmet so Rey swapped a precious ration package for some stuffing, and made a doll out of an old flight suit she found ages ago. She hadn’t used the material until now, not wanting to wear orange (Rey preferred to blend in with the sand).

“I like you, Ræh,” she would tell the doll.  

Sometimes it was the only thing she said a word to during the course of a day. She’d silently hand over her haul to Unkar Plutt, silently wait for her rations. But Ræh, she’d take on adventures in the sand dunes. Rey still had much to explore, and after work, if she wasn’t too tired, she’d take Ræh with her. Rey would wear the helmet and pretend that she was flying them both off planet.

“I love you, Ræh.”

They both had crashed here, after all. Rey taught Ræh how to survive, and she taught her the Maristela stories, and gave her happy endings after years of patience.  

Both Rey and Ræh loved happy endings best of all.

 

 

 

 

_Her hair was wet and the stones on the shore were cutting her feet and everything changed._

_Maristela wanted the adventure. She loved her pod, but her mother had often told her children stories of her life on the land, of the family she had made for seven years before returning to the seas to make a seal-family.  It was not uncommon, or even unheard of for a Sylkie to make their way on the land, even bearing human children, before returning home. The stories had lit up Maristela’s imagination as a young pup. She wanted to follow in her mother’s human footsteps.  Frolicking in starlight was fun, but she yearned for more, to discover what had held her mother on the land for seven long years._

_‘Remember, my child. Seven years. Any longer and you will remain human,’ her mother urged her, hugging her one last time._

_‘I will remember,’ Maristela promised._

_She turned to the land, her coat carefully draped over her arm, and made her way forward. Walking straight and true, she did not have to witness her mother turn back into her sealform and swim away from her._

_An old woman, who had seen it all before, offered her an old dress and a bag in which to keep her coat. Maristela thanked her and continued walking.  She wanted to see the whole of the land, from end to end.  She wanted to see if the stars looked different on the land than in the sea._

_She made her way through the world, making friends wherever she went. She had the same gift that all of the seafolk have, that is, the ability to find fresh water by listening. So she shared her gift with the world, digging wells where there was need for it. She never asked for payment, but people in this dry land were happy to trade a kindness for a kindness._

_For a year and a day, she fell in love with a human, but Maristela was restless and no one could bind her, not even a sweet love. No children came from the union, and so Maristela walked on, leaving the human to find another, stable love._

_As she walked, she fell in love with the land: its dryness, its warmth, its sharpness, the smells, the sounds. Maristela loved the sun on her hair, the dust on her shoes. She adored shining cities and all their noises, simple towns, isolated farms, silent wilderness, and everything inbetween. The food was delicious and varied with seasonings and spices. The art and stories and books she encountered set her imagination alight. She loved the pure white snow in the winter, it was a pleasure to watch it fall, to make tracks in it. She loved watching it melt and the arrival of green springs. Summers were hot and never-ending, until she would realize with a start that the trees had changed color and autumn had arrived. This rhythm was different than the tides of the sea, and she loved it all the same. She walked and she walked and she walked, falling in love with her freedom. Her blubber turned to muscle and her hands grew calloused from digging, and still she walked on._

_She missed her mother, sometimes, and the rest of the pod. Sometimes she dug wells even when there was no need for them, just for the excuse to listen for the water._

_At seven years minus one day, she neared the sea. Her coat sang to her, quietly, but Maristela felt herself torn between the land and the sea. She had fallen in love with the land, with the farmers and the merchants and the little human families, with the trees and the flowers and even the bees which stung if you were not careful. But she remembered her promise to her mother._

_There was one unexpected hiccup._

_She passed through a struggling queendom near the sea, where an army was trying to protect their gentle way of life. The army was tired, was nearly beaten. But still they hung on._

_Maristela, fearing nothing from these kind people, approached the exhausted Queen-turned-warrior._

_‘Do you need a well?’ she offered the Queen. ‘It is not much, but it is all I have to give.’_

_Her heart was in her throat as she offered what she feared might be her last gift._

_The Queen shed one tear, and said, ‘Please, I have nothing to give you in return.’_

_Maristela shrugged. ‘I do not ask for payment,’ she said. And then she listened for running water._

_In the middle of the Queen’s courtyard, she dug the Queen a fine well, enough for her armies to drink from._

_‘Thank you,’ the Queen said, her one tear had dried._

_‘Of course,’ said Maristela, reluctant to leave. Something about the gentleness of this planet had touched her heart, changed it._

_She still loved the sea, but she loved these humans, who carried the ocean inside them, who spilled seawater from their eyes in moments of high emotion._

_And she knew now, as she had never known before, that her Sylkie coat would not fit her, not after seven years of falling in love with the land._

_‘Perhaps, if you like,’ the Queen began, ‘If you’ve nowhere else to be, you might stay here? We hold on, and we hope, and it sometimes feels like it is not enough, but we hold lightness in our hearts. And all are welcome.’_

_Maristela looked around, taking in the land._

_‘Please,’ Maristela said, and followed the Queen back into her humble castle._

 

 

 

 

Rey was tired of walking. So she built a speeder. It wasn’t that simple, and it meant hoarding some of her haul, which meant less rations. She would lay in her Walker, burning with hunger, wishing for a distraction, dreaming of her rocky island in the middle of the sea, trying to think cool thoughts to trick her body. She couldn’t even talk to Ræh, let alone work on her speeder. But she would fight through her weaknesses, days of no work meant no food. Finally, finally, after 183 hashmarks, she completed it.  

She took Ræh on its maiden voyage, wearing the yellow and white helmet.  

Beings turned and stared when she rode it into the Niima outpost, but Rey could scavenge longer now, spend less energy walking to and from home.  

If she wasn’t too tired after work, she’d take her speeder out to the sand dunes near her home and push it to its limits, speed, height, whatever. Sometimes she felt like a Rebellion pilot, or maybe one of those daring podracers on Tatooine that the gangsters bet on.  Mostly she felt like herself, and imagined flying off the edge of the world and into space, into the stars, into the arms of her family.

Sometimes, offworlders would ask her about it, once a pair of Wookies had bought her a meal to talk to her about her speeder, how fast she had taken it, how high, how tight it could turn, how she had built it. Then, after scarfing down every single morsel they bought her, she had a barrage of questions for them, mainly if they knew of a family looking for a daughter. When they said no, she asked them for a story, and one of them knew one about Maristela. Rey devoured that, and all the other stories they offered her, about the stars, the planets, smuggling, the rebellion, Kashyyyk and the most famous Wookie, Chewbacca, and his human co-pilot Han Solo. They weren’t Maristela stories, but Rey soaked them up just the same.  

 

 

 

 

_Her hair was wet and the stones on the shore were cutting her feet and everything changed._

_Even for Sylkies, safety was fleeting, and every night held threat. They had to take their chances between the whales and the sharks who used the fading light to their advantage, and the men on the shores. The same lack of light confused Sylkies on the land._

_It was usually a choice that Sylkies make, to shed their skins and make their families with humans, or to remain in their sealskins and keep to the sea. However, there are those that wish harm upon the gentle seafolk. Many Sylkies had found themselves cut from their skin in the late hours of the night or the early hours of the morning. Maristela’s family, and all Sylkies sought shelters in coves, hidden among other seal pods, but somehow certain humans had a knack for finding Sylkies. Their coats taken from them, they were forced to labor, on farms or with farmers’ children, hoping to find their Sylkie skins before seven years passed._

_So it was with Maristela, who was frolicking with her seal-sisters in the shallows when steel sliced through her magical skin. The violence of the act shocked her. The steel burned her and left a wound, one that would become a scar, for steel is human made and dangerous to other folk. She lay gasping in the surf while her sisters screamed._

_She could not see who had done it, she could not see where her skin was. She only knew that she needed to find it. Her mother and her sisters chased off the man with the knife; Maristela swam clumsily into the deep until he was gone, but he had taken her coat with him. She could not stay with her family, not in a maiden form._

_Maristela cried tears into the sea, her mother tried to offer comfort._

_‘Where shall I go, what shall I do?’ she cried._

_‘Oh, my daughter.’ Her mother rocked her, at a loss, crying too. Maristela felt her skin covered in salt._

_The night faded, the light of the dawn started rosy._

_Her mother smoothed her daughter’s hair and kissed her temple. Her time was short on the land. She would need to put her sealskin coat back on._

_‘Darling child,’ her mother said, ‘Do you see the island across the bay?’ She pointed._

_Maristela nodded miserably._

_‘There is a lighthousekeeper there. His lighthouse runs by magic, he does not really tend to it. The keeper sleeps, dreamless. Though he has slept many years, he is not dead, nor shall death touch him now. It is said that he will wake in times of trouble, to help those who ask for it with kindness and desperation in their hearts. Go to him, perhaps he can help you find your coat._

_So Maristela walked onto the land, into a world she had never wished to know. She managed to convince a ferryman to take her to the light._

_The ferryman had a tender heart; his wife had been a sealass, and he cherished his seven years with her, before she chose to return to the sea. He did not approve of young men today, forcing the sealasses out of their coats, leaving them to dry up on the shore. They acted as if all of the treasures of the world belonged to them, even those with will of their own. But the old man knew better, that you cannot take what is not yours simply because you want it. So he saw this sealass with an ocean of sadness in her eyes and agreed to help her - in honor of his wife, whom he still loved._

_‘Yes, I shall take you to the light, my dear, and may the keeper inside be your savior.’_

_He offered her one of his wife’s dresses, a cloak she used to like, a pair of soft slippers, and he led her to his small boat._

_She was silent and staring as he rowed her across to the tall white tower. She liked the lighthouse from a distance, but as beautiful as lighthouses were, their sole purpose was to warn you away. Maristela thought about that, how even under the sea, the most beautiful creatures were often the most dangerous._

_Maristela wondered why any man would want a beautiful wife._

_‘Here you are, my dear,’ the ferryman said quietly, pulling up to the jetty._

_‘Thank you for your kindness,’ the Sylkie said, and smiled a sad smile at him._

_She got out of the boat and watched him slowly row away.  Then she turned to the tower and listened carefully. Not quite knowing the way but trusting in her heart, she followed the overgrown path up the side of the hill to the tower. There was no lock on the door, but it was hard to open, as the hinges were caked in rust._

_She began to climb._

_It was easy at first, but she grew weary after so many steps. This day had tried her, and the muscles in her maiden form were not used to walking, to holding herself up. The land was so much heavier than the sea. Still, she drew courage for herself and for her sisters, and climbed further and further._

_When she got to the top of the light she peered around the giant prism lense, through the glass of the tower, looking around for help._

_She had just turned to the sea where she hoped to catch a glimpse of her mother when she heard a warm voice say, ‘It is lovely, is it not? The prism is perfectly balanced and weighted and timed; it makes a full rotation every nine seconds. That is called a signature, and a sailor can orient themselves to it, if they are lost. Did you know lighthouses had signatures?’_

_Maristela felt his words wash over her. They were soft, comforting, even. She turned to face him._

_‘I need to find my coat. And my Sylkie sisters, their coats have been taken, too.’ she told him. ‘My mother suggested that you might be able to help us.’_

_He looked at her sadly, fondly._

_Kindly._

_‘My child,’ he said. ‘I cannot find your coat for you. I am bound by magic to this lighthouse.’_

_Maristela felt her face fall, her heart broke in her chest._

_‘But you are supposed to wake in times of trouble.’_

_‘And I do. While I cannot find your coat, I can help you find the strength in yourself. You must seek and find your own way in this world.’_

_‘How?’_

_He leaned very close and whispered in her ear._

 

 

 

 

Rescuing the tiny droid had not been something she had intended, but she couldn’t abandon it to another scavenger. It was on a mission, and she respected it. She’d bring it to the outpost tomorrow after work.

It rolled around her Walker taking everything in: her little plant, her doll, her lines of hashmarks.  

“Do you know any stories?” Rey asked.

The droid beeped in the affirmative.  

Rey settled next to it. “I’ll trade you, story for story,” she said.

They passed the cold night, and Rey heard a Maristela story she had never heard before. Tomorrow she’d take the little droid to the Niima Outpost, and maybe meet its master. Maybe they’d know about her family. But for tonight, she dreamt of her island in the middle of the sea, this time with a lighthouse and a wizened old keeper who would tell her how to get her family back.

 

 

 

 

_The maiden turned to seek and find her own way in the world that held such sharpness, with the teachings of the lighthousekeeper in her heart, to find what she sought._


End file.
